


Venomous Blades

by fireyicegirl



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Slow Burn, Spiderman!Keith, basically a spiderman au, yes deadpool lance will be a thing in this fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 00:19:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9573323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireyicegirl/pseuds/fireyicegirl
Summary: Keith had only learned two things in his sixteen years on this planet that truly stuck with him through everything.“Heroism is not given, it is earned” and “Patience yields focus”.He had learned these from his uncle, Shiro.What Shiro didn’t teach him, however, was what to do when a possibly radioactive spider bites you in the middle of a biology class field trip.





	

Keith had only learned two things in his sixteen years on this planet that truly stuck with him through everything.

“Heroism is not given, it is earned” and “Patience yields focus”. also A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.

He had learned these from his uncle, Shiro. Shiro had taught Keith many things in the time Keith lived with him and his aunt Allura, for example, “don't touch the oven while it’s on,” “don’t ever love someone who doesn’t love you back,” “don’t eat all the waffles in one sitting”.

What Shiro didn’t teach him, however, was what to do when a possibly radioactive spider bites you in the middle of a biology class field trip.

It was spring (well, it was that time where spring tried to take over winter and failed miserably, but Keith called it spring anyway), and spring meant field trips for Garrison High School’s junior biology class. This year, the juniors had chosen, more like agreed to, Zarkon Inc., an extremely high-tech and advanced research center where only New York’s finest scientists worked. It was that or taking notes on animals at the zoo. They obviously chose the better choice.

The field trip was going quite well, before the spider rudely bit him.

Keith had ridden on the bus with all his annoying classmates, and had somehow survived for the thirty minute drive it took to get from their high school to Zarkon Inc. He had managed to completely faceplant and successfully crack his glasses in front of the only person he didn’t hate (he did not have a crush on him, seriously fuck Pidge), Lance McClain.

Lance McClain was one of the more sought-after boys in Keith’s junior class. Lance was extremely liked by every student and teacher at Garrison. He was also extremely handsome, which didn’t help Keith’s argument of not having a crush on him. With dark, tanned skin, and gorgeous brown hair that was somehow always shiny, he was a beautiful sight for the eyes.

Lance was the type of guy who could get away with anything, and who used that to his advantage quite often. Keith couldn't count the number of times he’d witnessed Lance charm his way out of a detention or assignment, then winked to his friends when the teacher turned around.

Keith also had no idea why he didn’t completely despise the boy, maybe it was because he was so handsome, which weakened his argument even more. He didn't think Lance was a good person, but he didn't think he was necessarily a bad person either.

Enough about Lance, if Pidge found out he’d been thinking about Lance this long, he’d never live it down.

Speaking of Pidge, she had arrived just a few moments after the bus did. She had stepped out of a Mercedes, speaking sarcastically (Keith could tell because she had rolled her eyes so hard that Keith was sure they would've gotten stuck, which was a common thing with Pidge) to the driver before shutting the door and joining her class.

Keith figured the driver was most likely her brother, Matt, who happened to work at Zarkon Inc. just under the CEO himself, therefore, Matt was loaded. Keith found this pretty cool and interesting, but had learned never to bring it up. Last time he did, he got a face full of lemon pancakes (his aunt Allura made odd and just plain wrong food combinations).

Anyway, after Pidge joined the class, they headed off into Zarkon Inc. It was quite an experience, to say the least. The entire entrance was covered in a screen, which displayed a message from the CEO himself, welcoming the visitors to his company, what they do there, and what the visitors can observe. After the message began again (it was on a loop, seriously how are the scientists and receptionists on the first floor not driven to fucking insanity?), Keith’s biology class headed up the glass stairs, and were shown another video from one of the scientists who developed the extremely strong glass, and told some components that were in it.

Then they had entered a room with walls made out of the same glass material that the stairs were made out of. Inside, there were scientists typing rapidly on computers, mixing unknown substances in test tubes, and injecting lab rats with colorful liquid.

It was like a nerd’s marijuana.

Of course, Keith was the only one who thought this, he was more interested in science than his classmates, who yawned more than necessary when their tour guide spoke about chemicals or new formulas the scientists were working on.

Keith found this incredibly rude, of course, but didn't comment on it. He just wasn't the type to do things like that.

They soon migrated to another room, which contained more of their specimens who had been subjected to experiments. There were mice, rats, spiders, rabbits, and even a dog. The tour guide had explained that the specimen were the successful results of new experiments.

The specimen were incredible, some sped around their small enclosures, some jumped higher than should be possible for creatures of that size. Ironically, Keith had been admiring one of the spiders, which was spinning a web that was strong enough to hold a few cement blocks, with Pidge when he was bitten.  
Pidge jumped when Keith yelped from the pain. “What's your damage?”

“I don't know, I think something bit me?” Keith said, rubbing the still painful area. Pidge had an extremely confused face on her face.

“Something bit you? Where?” Keith turned from Pidge, lifting the hair off the back of his neck.

He heard Pidge click her tongue, “What? Is it that bad?”

“Looks like you've got a spider bite.” Pidge said bluntly, feeling around the bite mark. “And yeah, it looks pretty bad.”

“What —”

He was interrupted by the tour guide, who was announcing they would be moving to a different location.

Pidge stepped away from Keith, “We’ll check it out later, it's probably nothing.”

 

“You said it was probably nothing!” Keith exclaimed, dropping his hair from where he was holding it.

They had returned from the field trip not long ago, the tour ended soon after Keith was bitten, to his relief. He had rode with Pidge to her house, and was subjected to many questions (which he did not answer while slightly flustered, fuck Pidge) by her brother, Matt, who was driving. Pidge had teased him about having a crush on her brother, which Keith obviously denied more times than necessary. Seriously, what was it with Pidge and his feelings?

“It wasn't this big when I said that!” Pidge said as she snapped a picture with her phone. She handed it to Keith, who all but snatched it from her, looking at the picture on the screen.

It looked bad, to say the least. Keith could see the two marks where he had been bitten, a spider most likely, Pidge had theorized. It was swollen to the size of a golf ball, and was an alarming red.

“How am I going to hide this?” Keith asked, mostly to himself, but of course Pidge had to chime in.

“It seems your mullet will finally have some use.” She said, smirking.

Keith had had his mullet since he’d met Pidge, which was around third grade. It wasn't his choice, Shiro thought it would look nice. Boy was he wrong, Keith got teased so much about his hair. Even with the teasing, he was just too lazy to find another hair style, therefore, he partly fueled the teasing from Pidge by keeping the haircut.

Keith glared at her, throwing her phone at her face. “Seriously Pidge, what do I do? If Shiro sees this he’ll freak out.”

“You'll be fine,” Pidge said nonchalantly. “Your outdated mullet will keep it hidden.”

“We also don't know what kind of spider bit me. What if it was poisonous?”

“If it were poisonous, you'd be suffocating right now, and you don't seem to be gasping for air.”

Keith gave her a dull look.

She shrugged. “I’m not wrong. I'm sure you'll be fine. Now get out, I want to start on a new hacking program.”

 

When Keith arrived at his townhouse, he felt incredibly tired. He wasn't sure what from, they hadn't walked an insufferable amount at Zarkon Inc. He had gotten a decent amount of sleep the night before.

As he entered his house, he heard Shiro call out to him. “Keith, is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” Keith yelled back, shutting the front door.

His head was pounding, it felt like someone was beating his skull with a hammer. His legs felt as if they were about to give out any moment. His arms felt as though he were carrying fifty-pound weights that he couldn’t put down.

In summary, he felt like complete shit.

Allura stepped out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. Her hair was slightly messy, Keith assumed with was from taking off her apron. “Are you hungry? I’ve just started dinner, it’ll be ready soon.”

As hungry as Keith was, he didn’t think he could stay upright for much longer. “No thanks, Allura. I think I’m going to go up and lay down for a bit.” He denied her request, making a sluggish b-line to the stairs.

Allura frowned. “Are you sure? I’m making macaroni and cheese meatloaf. It’s a new recipe I found!”

As Keith reached the stairs, he held onto the banister so that he wouldn’t fall over. “I’m sure, thanks, though.”

“Alright,” Allura said as Keith began to make his way up the stairs. “Let us know if you need anything.”

Keith gave her a quick nod, then made his way to his room, shutting his door behind him. He threw his stuff on the freshly cleaned floor, not caring that he would have to certainly put it away when he woke up.

He collapsed on his bed, not even bothering to take off his glasses, and was out like a light.

 

When Keith woke up, his alarm was blaring. It seemed louder than usual, it was shrill in his ears. He groaned, pushing his alarm clock off his nightstand. He sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He opened his eyes and realized that it was morning. Had he really slept that long?

His concerns were confirmed when he looked at his clock, which told him he was about to be late for school.

He was suddenly incredibly alert, and searched for his glasses in the mess that was his bed. He found them, and put them on, but stopped. Something felt wrong. He took his glasses off his face, then realized that his vision was actually worse with his glasses.

He didn’t have time to deal with this weirdness.

Stuffing his glasses in his bag to worry about later, he bolted out of his room, and down the stairs. He almost tripped while grabbing a jacket from the hanger. He also managed to smack his elbow on the corner, and cursed loudly. This seemed to alert the attention of his guardians.

“Keith? You up?” He heard Shiro ask from the kitchen.

“No shit, Shiro.” Keith said, looking in the kitchen door.

He saw Shiro laugh, then say, “You’re going to be late.”

“Again, no shit, Shiro.” Keith said, rolling his eyes.

Allura came out from the kitchen, holding a plate of something Keith probably didn’t want to eat. She shoved it into his arms, “Here, go, you’re gonna be late.”  
“What is this?” He questioned. He was partly afraid of it, Allura was a good cook, but she combined the weirdest things. One day, she gave him chicken with lime crust. As much as he loves his aunt, he’d rather pay for the school lunch.

“My famous lemon pancakes. Now go, you’re going to be late already.” She said, practically pushing him out the door.

“Have a good day!” Shiro called from the kitchen as Keith shut the door behind him.

To put it simply, Keith ended up being very late to his classes. He stumbled into his school just as the second period bell rang, meaning he was later than he had ever been. He was normally a good student, and had only one sick day under his belt in his years going to any school, and no tardiness. Until today, that is.

When he stepped into the front office, he noticed someone leaning on the desk, most likely trying to charm his way out of a detention, yet again.

“Ms. Carver, is that a new haircut? It looks stunning on you.” Lance McClain was saying, an obviously fake smile on his face.

The desk lady, Ms. Carver, gave Lance an unimpressed look. Then she turned to Keith, raising her eyebrows. “Late, I presume?” Keith nodded in response, a bit scared. “What's your name?”

“Keith Kogane.”

Ms. Carver typed on her computer for a moment, looking down he nose. “It looks like you've never been late as long as you've been attending this school, is that correct?”

“Uh, yes ma’am.” Keith said.

“It’s your lucky day then, no detention. Get to class.” She said, handing him a late slip. He was surprised, he didn’t think they would have mercy on him of all people if they didn’t have mercy on Lance of all people.

“Mr. McClain, saturday detention.” Ms. Carver spoke to Lance, and handed him a late slip as well.

Keith noticed Lance taking offense the seemingly unfairness of the situation. Putting a hand to his chest dramatically, dropping his mouth open in a horrified stare. Keith snorted at this, and Lance spoke again.

“Ms. Carver, please, I’ve got to watch my siblings on saturday!” Lance exclaimed.

“I’m sorry Mr. McClain, rules are rules.”

Lance huffed, taking the late slip from the woman, then trudged out of the office. Keith watched him go, then said a quick ‘thank you’ to Ms. Carver.

As he made his way out of the front office, he smacked into something. He stumbled back, regaining his balance and looking at what he had run into. It was Lance, of course.

“Shit, sorry man. I think we have the same second period, so we might as well go together.” Lance said, shrugging.

“Uh, okay.” Keith said hesitantly, and Lance began walking, with Keith struggling to catch up, he wasn't ready for Lance to suddenly begin walking.

They walked in silence for a moment, Keith sure as hell wasn't going to talk first. He was sure he'd end up talking about some nerdy thing he likes and embarrass the shit out of himself.

He had done it before, with some guy in his chemistry class named Maura. He had had such a weird name, Keith couldn't help but connect it with things like Narnia or the Hobbit. Needless to say, Maura avoided Keith for the rest of the year.

“So, you're coming to my house on saturday, and you're going to babysit my siblings.” Lance said abruptly, folding his arms behind his neck. Keith turned to him with an incredulous look on his face. Did he actually just say that?

“Excuse me?”

“Since you got off the hook and I didn't, it's only fair that you help me out.” Lance said, shrugging.

Keith then stopped completely. “That's not how it works.”

“It kinda is,” Lance said, then pulled out a pen from his pocket. He grabbed Keith’s arm, and began scribbling. Keith just stood there, unable to believe what was happening. One of the most popular boys in the school was scribbling on his arm, and had basically just told Keith what his weekend plans were.

Keith snapped out of his daze-like state when he heard Lance click his pen, releasing Keith’s arm. He looked at his arm, seeing a phone number messily written. He looked back to Lance, still not believing this was happening.

“Text me and I’ll give you my address.”

Keith blinked. “I —”

“Thanks man.” Lance interrupted Keith before he could speak, clapping him on the shoulder. “See you in class.”

Keith just stood there as Lance walked off, unable to process anything that had just happened.

 

“What the fuck is on your arm?” Pidge asked Keith at lunch as he sat down beside her. “And why are you wearing the same clothes you were yesterday?”

Keith groaned as he realized he hadn’t gotten ready at all. “I woke up really late this morning for some reason. And apparently, I’m babysitting Lance McClain’s siblings on saturday.”

Pidge nearly choked on her fries at that. “You’re babysitting his siblings? How did this happen? I need details.”

He explained to her the entire situation anyway. And, Pidge being Pidge, decided to try and look for the 'other meaning' in Lance's words, trying to claim that he was actually asking Keith out on a date until she realized something.

“Where are your glasses?” Pidge interrupted herself, blinking a few times as she realized this.

“Oh, right. I can't see with them on anymore.”

Pidge’s eyebrows scrunched together. “You're telling me that you can't see with the thing that is supposed to help you see.”

“Yeah…” Keith trailed off, looking away. It did sound completely crazy. Maybe his brain was just still trying to wake up at that moment. He reached down into his bag, pushing through notebooks and folders to reach his poor, cracked glasses. He took them out of the bag and put them on.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Pidge asked, holding up an extremely blurry hand.

“Your hand looks like a blurry potato.” Keith said flatly, taking his glasses off and blinking when his vision was suddenly shifted from blurry to clear.

“That's strange—” Pidge said, but Keith suddenly had an odd feeling, a tingling of sorts. Acting as if on instinct, he put his hand up and caught something. This all happened in about a second, and Keith took a few seconds to register what had just happened.

He was holding a football.

He had just caught a football.

Without even trying.

He then noticed it was deadly silent, the normally loud cafeteria had gone so silent that if a pin dropped it would be heard throughout the room.

He turned around, seeing a guy staring open-mouthed at him. “Oh, uh, sorry. Here's your ball back.” Keith said, throwing the ball back, and it hit the guy in the gut, and he let out an ‘oomph.’

Keith turned around quickly, ducking his head. It took a few more moments for everyone to get over their initial shock. As the cafeteria noise began growing again, Pidge began speaking again.

“How did you do that?” She asked, eyes wide.

“I—I don't know.” 

 

As Keith went through the next few days, he discovered more and more new things about himself. He discovered he could shoot a type of webbing from both wrists (he wasn't complaining, it provided a great asset to when he wanted to change the channel but was too lazy to get up and actually get the remote).

He couldn't help but think these things were tied to the spider bite he had gotten on the field trip just days prior. This was later suspected by Pidge as well when he told and showed her what was going on. Pidge had decided to “monitor him,” which really meant Keith had to stay at her house and show her how his webbing worked.

“This is amazing,” She said, holding the webbing in between her fingers, stretching it. She had been examining it for a while now, just sitting there with the webbing while Keith attempted to do his homework. “It doesn’t break, no matter how hard I pull.”

“You’ve already said that,” Keith said, dropping his pencil onto his homework. He couldn’t quite concentrate on calculus with Pidge constantly making remarks about the webbing.

She looked up at him, lowering the webbing. “We have to test this out.”

“How?” Keith questioned, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer.

“You’re gonna jump off a building.” She stated.

“No,” he immediately said. He knew Pidge could go to extremes sometimes for experiments, but he refused to be one of those experiments. She was one of those kids who would go all out for the egg dropping test, and, of course, all her first tries tragically broke on the cement. He would not be that egg.

“Keith, this has so much potential, I wanna see just how strong it is.” She said, putting the webbing right in his face.

He pushed the webbing away from his face. “Then you jump off the building. I’m not going to become a lemon pancake.”

“But you’re the one with the unlimited supply of webbing that’s right at your fingertips, literally.” She pushed on. “It doesn’t even have to be a super tall building, it can be a small one.”

Keith put his face in his hands, groaning loudly. He weighed his options. He could either refuse, and listen to Pidge complain about not being able to see the full potential of the webbing and basically sulking around. Or, he could agree, and possibly turn into a lemon pancake on a sidewalk. As much as he wished to choose the first option, he chose the latter.

“Okay, fine, but it has to be a small building.” Keith gave in, and Pidge’s face lit up.

“You’re the best,” She said, standing up, still holding the webbing.

He stood up as well, “Don’t you forget it.”

They ended up going to the roof of Pidge’s house, which was not small by any means. In fact, it was originally two townhouses, but Pidge’s parents decided to knock out the walls in between them and just make them one large townhouse.

The look on Keith’s face told Pidge he wasn’t happy by any means about this. “Don’t give me that look, you’re the one who agreed.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Look, just connect some web to that street light—” Pidge pointed to the street light opposite the townhouse “—and like, swing like Tarzan.”

“Swing like Tarzan.” He deadpanned.

“That’s what I said.”

He rolled his eyes yet again but did what she said, shooting the webbing to the street light, and was surprised that it didn’t lose velocity on the way over. Stepping to the edge, he held onto the very thin webbing, already knowing this was a very bad idea. Gripping and regripping the webbing, he tried to gain some courage, and tried not to look down.

Apparently, he was taking too long, because he heard Pidge sigh loudly, then say, “Just go you wuss.”

Then he felt hands on his back, and he was falling.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fic in the voltron fandom and i'm v happy with it ((: i love this au and i had a bunch of ideas for it so why not write an entire fic about it?
> 
> find me places (:
> 
> tumblr - keithisgay  
> twitter - lanceslion


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